Minoru Suzuki vs. Brock Lesnar in FPR and NJPW G1 Climax Finals - AJ Styles vs. Tanahashi in Fire Pro Returns and WWE 2K14

After the G1 Climax tourney, there were so many things I wanted to do and did. I made Honma, Bad Luck Fale, and revamped Minoru Suzuki. The last one took quite a bit of effort since his present-day moveset and appearance vary so wildly compared to the in-game version. I kept his face and head and just turned his hair grey to match the shaved look from afar, and added a ponytail look on top in dark black for contrast. The end result is pretty much perfect.

Since it would be a bit of a tease to not include the matches. Here's the first one that wound up being short, but really violent. The second is much longer, but not quite what I wanted, and well-worth redoing down the line.

Now, onto the original point of this post - AJ Styles vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi. Their match was fantastic and I loved how AJ had all-new gear for the event. It was tough to replicate so quickly, but I think I came fairly close given that it was done on the same day.

 

With WWE 2K14, I customized the movesets and figured I would get an even better match - but it didn't quite work out. One thing I was counting on was it being a counter-heavy match. While I did some countering throughout, the CPU never countered things I was hoping would be countered. I went for the springboard 450 hoping for a quick counter into a running strike or grapple, but it didn't happen. The first 450 also didn't lead to one, and when I finally was done, I was hoping for a Tanahashi special so the frog splash could either get a win or be countered if I didn't have an escape saved up. It's a fast match, but not quite what it could have been.